Travel to Malaysia, Sarawak, Kuching.

My flight left Kuala Lumpar on time and landed in Kuching several hours later. I grabbed a taxi and headed to my accomodation, Singgahsana Lodge, but I was too early to get into my room. It was barely 10.00am and as check-in time was 1.00pm, I had a few hours to kill. So, I left my suitcase in their care and headed out into the streets again.

Once the capital of the White Rajahs of Sarawak, and now with a population of 600,000, Kuching is small enough to explore on foot. The name of the city, Kuching, is thought to derive from the Malay word kucing, meaning cat. There are certainly plenty of cat statues in the streets and cat themed tourist junk in the shops to support this theory. I walked the promenade along the river and browsed the tourist shops in the street opposite, to pass the time. I also needed to find an ATM machine as I was down to my last $10.

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Travel to Malaysia, Sarawak, Bario.

From Miri, LP recommended a detour southeastwards back towards the Limbang division of Sarawak state, towards the piece of land separating Brunei. Unfortunately, this journey can only reasonably be done by flight, as it entails crossing rugged terrain. Given my time and budget constraints, I had to choose between checking out the famous caves of Gunung Mulu National Park, and the Kelabit Highlands. As I already intended to visit the caves of Niah National Park, I decided on the latter.

And so it was a short 1h flight aboard a propellor "twin otter" MASWings plane to Bario, the capital and gateway to the Kelabit Highlands. Capital is of course only a technical term, as Bario itself has a population of barely 1000, and the panoramic greenery is only sporadically dotted by signs of human dwelling. At a moderate altitude of about 1000m, Bario is occasionally chosen by travellers seeking to escape from the oppressive heat of lowland Sarawak, and also to get away from it all, more generally speaking. The highlands offers great multi-day trekking opportunities, through minor villages and traditional longhouses. But as I only had two days to spare here, I spent my time just taking in the
Wild Oriental Hornbill Spotted It figures. I spend MYR40 for each boat cruise down the River Kinabatangan back in Sabah to spot these critters, and of course they show up free of charge first thing when I arrived in Bario.sights closer to town proper, already a rural delight.

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Travel to Malaysia, Sarawak, Miri.

I only spent one day in Miri due to time constrictions with my travel plan, but upon my arrival I immediately wished I'd allowed a bit more time. My friend and I decided to hire a car and visit the Niah caves an hour outside of town. The caves are considered one of the great wonders of Sarawak and we felt it would be time well spent.

We arrived at the caves around 1030am, got a map, and rented head torches for 5 MYR. It's about a 3.8 km hike through the rainforest to the caves. Luckily for us, my friend was a biology major when he was in uni so watching the small wildlife along the way was a lot of fun. He was always able to identify what we were looking at and what said creature was doing. Most likely I would have missed quite a bit if I'd done the hike alone. We saw a variety of insects and some birds, and even a squirrel I'd never sen before. The trees and plants were pretty amazing, too, though nothing like how the rainforests are depicted in the movies. Much of the boardwalk trail follows a murky river
A walk in the rainforest...and we kept joking about watching for crocodiles. (There was a sign to beware of them at the entrance to the park.) We never did see any.

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